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Three Dishes at Empellón Cocina

By Pete Wells April 24, 2012 5:33 pmApril 24, 2012 5:33 pm

At Empellón Cocina, Alex Stupak and his wife and partner, Lauren Resler, have given themselves permission to stick to Mexico’s traditional cuisine when it suits them and to leave tradition behind when that seems like a more intriguing path. I spoke with them on the phone this week to learn the inspirations and innovations behind three of the restaurant’s best dishes.

Rachel Barrett for The New York Times

Guacamole with pistachios and masa crisps ($12)
This dish is an example of one way tradition and innovation can coexist.
Given that no two cooks will make their guacamole the same way, the version at Empellón Cocina starts out well within the accepted range of variation. It’s a rough mash of ripe avocados, onions, cilantro, jalapeños, lime juice and salt. Then comes the big exception: pistachios. I like the crunch they add, although some people will argue that guacamole should never be crunchy. I also find that the nutty flavor harmonizes well with the avocado. And, of course, the colors match.

The masa crisp, though, has little resemblance to the tortilla chip more often seen with guacamole. It’s more like a cracker or flatbread, and the dough is a little more complicated than the one used to make tortillas. In fact, it’s closer to the dough used to make tamales, which typically has masa, baking powder, chicken broth and lard. The crisps, developed by Ms. Resler, use water in place of chicken broth, and instead of steaming the dough inside a corn husk or other wrapper, she spreads it out on a baking sheet and bakes it.

Rachel Barrett for The New York Times

Roasted carrots with mole poblano, yogurt and watercress ($13)The mole poblano paste that the restaurant makes “to me, is a mole poblano — I don’t change that in any way,” he said, from the traditional recipe that includes, among many other things, raisins, almonds, several kinds of dried chiles, and unsweetened chocolate.

That mole is rubbed on carrots and is also spread thin and dehydrated to make a kind of chip or tuile. The spackle on the inside of the bowl, however, is the mole mixed with some molasses. “Using a mole paste in that way is not at all authentic,” Mr. Stupak said. Softening and extending the flavors of the mole is Greek yogurt in the bottom of the bowl; the dish is also garnished with sliced pickled carrots, watercress leaves and toasted sesame seeds.

Rachel Barrett for The New York Times

Gordita with smoked plaintain chorizo and egg yolk ($9)
Seeing liquid egg yolk bleed from an incision in a gordita has a surrealist quality that Buñuel and Dali might have appreciated. Gorditas don’t usually act that way. More typically, they are fried discs of masa with an incision into which some kind of goodness or other is stuffed.

The gorditas at Empellón Cocina are made more like ravioli. Masa is rolled out, then topped with an egg yolk, and covered with another layer of rolled masa. The edges are sealed, and the gordita, which looks like a flying saucer from the ’50s, is fried. The trick of the dish is to fry the masa without cooking the yolk so that the egg stays liquid inside.

“When we first put it on the menu, we had some failures,” Mr. Stupak said. “Now the rule is we have to set a timer for 90 seconds, as ridiculous as that seems for a busy kitchen. We pierce it with a needle just to probe it, and we try to send it to the table alone because it if sits there two or three minutes, sometimes it does overcook just sitting in the hot masa.”

Beneath the gordita is a spoonful of chorizo and smoked plantains mashed with lime juice, chipotle and honey. The dish is dressed with crema, queso fresco and lettuce leaves.